The Physicality of Feelings: Interview with Stephen Bauman, Sweden

“Men are from Earth, women are from Earth. Deal with it.” ― George Carlin

“She’s a woman, you’re a dude. You’re not supposed to understand her. That’s not what she’s after…. She doesn’t want you to understand her. She knows that’s impossible. She just wants you to understand yourself. Everything else is negotiable.”― Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

The Violinist | Oil on Canvas | Stephen Bauman | 2012

INTERVIEW WITH CLASSICAL REALIST PAINTER, STEPHEN BAUMAN

~ Mölndal, Sweden

Deanna Piowaty: Stephen, not all painters are able to capture the complex inner emotional life of men as well as they paint women, but you do this quite successfully and powerfully. What enables you to feel and communicate what so many others cannot?

Stephen Bauman: If there is anything that I have added to the observation of men it comes from thinking that they are no different from women. Strip away all of the stuff of life, put us into sensory deprivation tanks and I think that there is the same fragile flickering human spirit that makes us do all of the things that we do. I see the same needs and wants in both men and women.

Other Voices | Pencil On Paper | Stephen Bauman | 2014

Stephen Bauman: On this level I see us as the same. You can see this in the painting, When I Was Young. It is a painting of a young girl and her glowing finger. This painting is about the feeling of potential associated with youth. It is not by accident that the title and the image contain the obvious contradiction that it has. I am a man and the picture shows a young girl. How is this a picture of when I was young? The feeling is the same for each of us, the potential is the same.

When I Was Young | Oil on Canvas | Stephen Bauman | 2014

Deanna Piowaty: You’ve said that your wife, classical realist painter, Cornelia Hernes, is your favorite subject to paint. Can you elaborate? Have you ever captured an aspect of her that startled you both?

Cornelia Hernes | Photograph by Anna Edlund & Markus Andersson

Stephen Bauman: I think that my paintings of Cornelia are my way of spending more time with the woman that I love. In a world filled with any number of subjects that could be painted, I find that there is nothing that makes me feel as much as painting her. Like anyone who does what they love, I think that my love for her shows through in these paintings.

Like Lotus Leaves | Oil on Panel | Stephen Bauman | 2012

Stephen Bauman: With all of my work, I aim to make a statement about the importance of emotional experience. Think about a life without emotion: it’s like dehydrated space food. The empty crunch of a substance made to just keep you alive. Granted, I’ve never eaten space food but this is my dystopian vision of it. By making paintings which are naturalistic and at the same time contain something unnatural (external lights, unmotivated value changes)

I am making a world where feelings have a physical presence.

Like Lotus Leaves is a painting of Cornelia that takes this shape. Sitting across from my wife, this is how she looks. With the addition of these glowing lights at the periphery of the image I am saying that when I look at her, there is something extra. In my eyes, in my vision, there is something magic about her. There is a swelling of emotion that I feel which reflects all of our experiences together. In six years together we have seen and done so much.

Deanna Piowaty: I’ve always been intrigued by the term “realist.” As it applies to painting, what are the parameters an artist must work within? Where is the line between what the artist perceives and what “is”? What is truth in painting?

Stephen Bauman: In painting we rely on personal truths. Think of someone who is a very positive person, an optimist. Their life and their actions are a reflection of this positivity. My paintings and drawings are the same, they reflect the way I feel about life. Being alive is a rich experience. There is a musician named Jonathan Richman whom this reminds me of. He is an undiluted fountainhead of human experience. In songs like Affection, Hospital, and Girlfriend, he is pouring out his feelings of desire and need for warmth, totally unaffected. There is such intense bravery in that action that people connect and see themselves in his lyrics.

Stephen Bauman: This happens because all of our diverse expressions come from some of the same needs. For me this is my greatest ambition as an artist, and when it happens, gives me the deepest gratification.

Gender | Oil on Linen | 2008 | Stephen Bauman

Deanna Piowaty: You were born in the U.S, in Miami, Florida, but now reside in Mölndal, Sweden. What brought you to Sweden? What has captivated you most about that beautiful country?

Stephen Bauman: Sweden is a great place to live. We came to Sweden by way of a transfer from teaching at the Florence Academy of Art in Florence, Italy, to the branch in Mölndal where we currently teach. Also to be closer to Cornelia’s family in Norway.

The best things I can refer to about Sweden are the other artists I have been able to work with at the academy here: Andreas Birath…

"My paintings are allegorical, but I expect each viewer will bring their own interpretation to a piece. The question one asks depends on the individual interpretation. If it’s a superficial read of literal abuse or abasement, then that is the subject being addressed within the viewer. If there is a more complex interpretation stemming from one’s life experiences, then the piece becomes personal, and asks questions the viewer is interested in answering."

"If only I had parented differently, if only I had been a better child, if only I had been more desirable, then the addict would never have chosen their addiction over me. The truth is that addiction is a complicated process that no other person can be responsible for, only the addict. To believe otherwise is at the heart of codependency."
~Andrew Nargolwala, psychotherapist

"I was a little surprised to hear so many people express that they perceive my pieces as being intentionally disturbing. Wanting to explore the workings of the unconscious tends to make people feel uncomfortable. They imagine death...I like to think of insects caught in amber."

"A poet looks at the world a little differently from others, and so does a scientist. I am very fortunate to be both. I find beauty in the cosmological consequences of dark matter, as much as I do in the written and spoken word. I appreciate the beauty in Heisenberg's principle as much as Matisse's economy of line. I'm probably one of the few poets in the world who literally dreams about tensor equations."
~Samuel Peralta, physicist and award-winning author of Sonata Vampirica

"Fantasy by definition is an escape, and it was a way for me to avoid difficult situations and emotions in my adolescence; however, I don’t think of reading as escapism. I think the activities of daily life are more commonly an escape from difficult or strong emotions. It’s in literature and art that one can usually come into more direct contact with those things. That’s why art is so fascinating. Even fantasy books, ironically."

"No one lives a bloodless existence. Everything that is repressed eventually finds a way out, even if it is only in the deepest of unremembered dreams. Though I’d rather it was with honesty, acceptance, a bold step, forgiveness and joy. Otherwise we tend to get all twisted up. Art, like love, does keep us alive; and, like love, it has the power to return us to our humanity when nothing else can."
~Interview with British poet, essayist, author, John Siddique

"This is like a kaleidoscope creating different images," says the artist of his work. "Like sounds flowing through the four windows, creating a stereo panorama, full of excitement and anxiety."
~Leo Bugaev, photographer, Russia

Many of the sights and sounds we’re subjected to in our society are harsh and disturbing. Psychologically and spiritually toxic. Scenes of cruelty, vindictiveness, ugliness and pettiness saturate the media and poison the mental atmosphere. I like the fact that I am sending out into the world images, pictures, little visions, that may do a tiny bit to counteract all that and communicate a sense of beauty, gentle humanity, grace, even holiness. It makes me feel like I’m doing something worthwhile in this sad, sad world.

One of the gifts of Aleah Chapin's body-of-work is the idea that true intimacy is achieved first and foremost by revealing oneself honestly. That through vulnerability we are able to deeply connect. One’s imperfections can actually make connection with others deeper, stronger. More real.

"When I make a photograph, it has the feeling of a miracle. Almost like a zen thing. The good pictures, I can’t take full credit for them. You don’t make a photograph so much as receive it. I wander around with my eyes open, and I’m just hoping for the best. Sometimes things that you’d never think would be special, you just hit upon, not fully understanding at the time why."
~Gary Briechle, photographer, Rockland, Maine

The former dockyard worker from Hiroshima decided that instead of creating one enduring piece to serve as metaphor for a love never-ending, he would construct a series of temporary installations meticulously fashioned from the painstakingly slow arrangement of so many tiny grains of salt.

"I was a little surprised to hear so many people express that they perceive my pieces as being intentionally disturbing. Wanting to explore the workings of the unconscious tends to make people feel uncomfortable. They imagine death...I like to think of insects caught in amber."